Trading Carbon: Offsets, Human Rights, and Environmental Regulation

By July 2014, the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) had registered over 8,500 projects, issuing 1.4 billion carbon credits known as Certified Emission Reductions (CERs), with each CER equal to one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e). Despite a dramatic collapse in the value of CERs, from a high of over €20 per CER in 2008 to a record low of €0.19 in April 2013, the CDM continues to register projects while developing new strategies to revive the ailing scheme. In turn, the credits produced through its emission-reducing and/or emission-eliminating projects are destined for sale largely in the Kyoto Protocol’s compliance market, allowing participant states in the Global North to offset their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in place of material reductions at the source. As the largest global carbon offsetting scheme in existence, responsible for channelling billions of dollars in carbon finance to the Global South, the CDM has been the subject of significant critique stemming in part from the poor environmental integrity of many of its projects, and also due to its poor track record on protecting the human rights of many affected by it.